If you’re a Yallin, you play for the Gryphs

Fifth sister set to play basketball for University of Guelph

Sister act

Tony Saxon/Mercury staff

Youngest sister Kate, with ball, will be the fifth Yallin sister to suit up for the Guelph Gryphon basketball team this fall. She follows in the footsteps of, clockwise from left, Stephanie, Alex, Kris and Andrea.

PORT COLBORNE — Once Kate Yallin decided on which side of the border she would be attending university, the school itself wasn’t really in doubt.

Like sisters Stephanie, 28, Kris, 24, Alex, 22, and 19-year-old Andrea before her, 17-year-old Kate will attend the University of Guelph this fall. Like her sisters, Kate will also suit up for the Guelph Gryphons basketball team.

“I’m going to get hold of (U of G president) Alastair Summerlee and see if we can have the fifth one for free,” says mom Carrie Yallin, of all things a University of Western Ontario grad.

“We never told any of them to go to Guelph. It was sold to the first one and (for) the rest it just became a comfort factor,” says dad Mark, a McMaster University alumnus.

The four oldest Yallin girls agree Kate could be the best player of the bunch, which is saying something considering Stephanie was a four-time league all-star and guided the Gryphons to an Ontario university championship in 2005.

“She has the potential to be the best, she just doesn’t know it yet,” says Stephanie, who helped coach Kate last year in club basketball.

Mom and dad can take partial credit for the basketball end of things. If you don’t play hockey in the lakeside town of Port Colborne — population 19,000 — there are really only two other options for girls.

“Dance or basketball was pretty much it,” Carrie says. “And then it was easier to have them all in basketball as they got older.”

Mark and Carrie coached the girls as youngsters in minor basketball. As the girls got older, and better, they all starred at nearby Lakeshore Catholic high school and went on to play club basketball in Niagara Falls.

That’s where coaches from both sides of the border started recruiting the oldest Yallin sister, Stephanie.

“Basketball is a different world down there (in the United States). It’s more focused on basketball than the overall university experience,” Stephanie says of why she chose Guelph, despite writing the SAT exam necessary to attend university in the States.

For their parents, Guelph was close enough to visit and far enough away that the girls would gain independence.

“We strongly advised them to go away to school,” says mom, conscious of the fact Brock University was just 25 minutes down the road in St. Catharines.

All the Yallin girls came to love Guelph for its campus, the small-town feel, the basketball and the off-campus life.

Most of the credit for establishing the Yallins’ ties to Guelph goes to former longtime Gryphon basketball coach Angela Orton. Now the manager of intercollegiate programs at the U of G, Orton was looking to overhaul her team in 2003. Sick of losing seasons or being bounced from the playoffs after a single game, she was looking to start fresh.

Then Orton did a wise thing. While other coaches were picking and choosing between the three and promising nothing, Orton successfully recruited the trio as a unit and told them they would be the backbone of a rejuvenated Gryphons team for the next four years.

“I have tremendous affection for the entire family,” Orton said of the Yallins. “Their family values, their integrity as people: they’re the kind of people you want to be associated with.”

That love affair is apparently mutual. Mark Yallin said Orton got to know his other daughters and a “warm and fuzzy” relationship was formed.

“I was only the second one, so there was no real pressure,” Kris said. “I almost went to Laurier.”

All the fun she had visiting big sister in Guelph didn’t hurt when it came time to choose.

Alex said she weighed the option of going elsewhere, “but when you see your older sisters enjoying it and being successful, you see it as a good experience and you want to be part of that.”

The rest just fell in line, although it was new coach Tom O’Brien that was doing the recruiting now.

“The city’s not too big and not too small,” Andrea says. “Plus your parents can come to every single game.”

Stephanie, Kris and Alex all played four years in Guelph. Andrea played a year and had to stop due to a health issue with her back.

Stephanie has had the most basketball success to date, but Kate might go one step further. Taller than her sisters at nearly six feet and with a more rounded game, her family sees big things for her.

“She sees the court well. She’s just got to get that killer instinct,” her dad says.

The Yallins are a little spread out these days, but they all gathered at the family home in Port Colborne to be interviewed. Stephanie is a speech therapist in St. Catharines and will be the first one married later this year. Kris lives in Toronto and works in finance, Alex lives in Barrie and works for TD Canada Trust and Andrea is entering her third year of biology studies at the U of G. Kate will study commerce, economics and finance starting in the fall.

None of the first four Yallin girls would have changed anything about their choice of school.

“I never regretted coming to Guelph,” Stephanie says. “I loved it for basketball, but also for all of the other things both on and off campus. I never thought it was the wrong decision.”